It’s in our hands to act on climate change

Letters editor

On holiday this year (by train) we visited Freiburg in southern Germany. As well as being an attractive city near the Black Forest, it is famed for its environmental initiatives. But the whole world needs to act urgently on climate change.

Freiburg usually gets plenty of rain by being near the mountains, but this year everything was parched; unwatered shrubs were dying and trees were dropping their leaves in late July.

Here in Scarborough we may have enjoyed a warmer summer. However, many have died across the globe because of heatwaves: Japan 300, England possibly over a thousand, predicted to be 7,000 annually by 2050. Fires and floods have been devastating in many countries.